Road Trip Planning Guide (Recommendations from a 1400 mile trip in two travel days)

[feye]

There is a huge Porsche Tax on the unit without bringing any extra value!!

Maybe, maybe not! My t-junk charger died after 4 years and has almost 0 functionality and it is also expensive.

I am very happy with my fixed installed PMCC. Let's see how long it will last, then we judge the price/quality point!

 

[daveo4EV]

@feye you've demonstrated a marked bias against Tesla - personally having owned Teslas for 7 years, and Porsches for 12 years - I'm going to disagree with you and suggest your anti-Tesla bias is coloring your opinion

Tesla is a better software platform than porsche and the Taycan's software is weak at best and very very buggy - much more so than I've ever experienced in my Tesla...

I also say this with over 30 years professional software development experience for a major world wide tech company - Porsche software is better than they've ever done (ambitious by porsche standards) and weak and complex and obviously done by a struggling software team by silly-con valley standards.

Porsche's software does not hold a candle to Tesla's…Porsche is on it's back foot here with their need to catch up to modern software standards.

one of many examples is how complex the charging settings are - simply unfathomable by any person even those of us with extensive tech experience - I can go on and on and on…vs. Tesla which is drop dead simple.

 

[Scandinavian]

Very US specific, though!

There are some specific issues for US owners in there, but in general all the frustration and issues with separate apps and web based planning is valid here in Europe as well. The lack of overview of HPC’s and the lack of distance to it, is striking. The Porsche Charging Planner is not much help at all.

The issues of starting a charging session is similar and relies on good cellular coverage at the chargers. One thing we seem have here, that is better than in USA, is the PorscheCharging Card that can start the charging.

I know and have seen that you are very negative to Tesla, which in my experience of owning a model 3 nearly 2 years, is completely the opposite and unfair. Maybe model 3 was much better, as the second generation of Taycan probably also will be. I have never had any trouble with chargers, availability or charging sessions with my Tesla. I have got several software updates that have improved the usability of the car a hell of a lot. Dashcam features, Sentry mode, reversing side cameras, charger availibilty numbers direct on the main screen etc etc. All OTA and successful. There have been some games and other not so valid stuff as well, but you do not need to play with that. Our grandkids love the Caraoke feature a lot though.

You may have had a very early model of the S, or perhaps some fault in it?

I certainly look forward to seeing some improvements in my Taycan software, but so far I have waited for 7 months and not seen or heard of anything coming. How they could release the PCM software in such a poor state is something I can not understand.

 

[evanevery]

Not my experience, the software so far in my Taycan is better than in my MS90D.

That makes me feel very sorry for your MS90D...

We originally planned on selling our Model-X once we took delivery of our Turbo S. After a few weeks with our Taycan, we decided to keep the Model X.

 

[feye]

@feye you've demonstrated a marked bias against Tesla

0% bias, 100% experience, confirmed by

https://nextmove.de/service-hoelle-tesla-storniert-unsere-model-3

and recently

https://insideevs.com/news/459071/dutch-taxi-company-sues-tesla-1-million

and next level

https://www.d1ev.com/news/qiye/133393

After almost 35 years of software development, I look at a screen and click/touch, I have a very good idea what's behind it!

0% bias, 100% experience!

I am here because of my Taycan!

 

[feye]

That makes me feel very sorry for your MS90D...

We originally planned on selling our Model-X once we took delivery of our Turbo S. After a few weeks with our Taycan, we decided to keep the Model X.

We will ditch our MS90D to replace it with something cool, like the EQS.

 

[Redders]

Yup, that would be helpful!

Bear in mind that NOT EVEN the chargers the database KNOWS ABOUT can be identified by their exact address. Stupid software forces us to "find nearby chargers" even for chargers that ARE in the database.

When I haven't done this, stupid software has tried to reroute me to another charger 30 miles away even though I specifically had a stop planned at the very address where there was a charger (...and it was in the database).

We are so covered with stupidity in the software that I think "enhancements" (like being able to designate your own address as a charger) are pretty far down the "likely" list...

None of this really matters much ("fueling" stops) if you are driving an ICE as stations are so easily found. But for an EV, this is critical if you wish to do a road trip...

Big fail for Porsche here!

FYI - I'd emailed Porsche support some while ago (before seeing your post) to ask if there is a way to add the address of 'non-Porsche' chargers to the car's navigation system. I was called by a very helpful lady yesterday who understood the issue, but confirmed that there is no way to add charger locations that are know to the driver but that are not currently in the Porsche database, and there are no plans to add the feature - it appears we'll be using alternative apps for the forseeable future.

 

[evanevery]

FYI - I'd emailed Porsche support some while ago (before seeing your post) to ask if there is a way to add the address of 'non-Porsche' chargers to the car's navigation system. I was called by a very helpful lady yesterday who understood the issue, but confirmed that there is no way to add charger locations that are know to the driver but that are not currently in the Porsche database, and there are no plans to add the feature - it appears we'll be using alternative apps for the forseeable future.

One of the major problems, is its even not that easy to set favorites for chargers which ARE known to the Porsche database!

Even if you push down the specific address of a charging station FULLY KNOWN to the Porsche database, you must still CONVERT it while sitting in the car. IOW: While the Web Based Nav screen on the Porsche Portal is fully capable of recognizing a charger address in it database, once you push that down to the car (via "favorites -> Send to Car"), the onboard Porsche Nav system (which ALSO has the charger in its database), is too stupid to recognize it as such!

Even though you sat in your nice comfy desk chair and casually prepared your EV trip online while conveniently sitting at your desk - you still gotta climb into the car and spend a considerable amount of time converting all these KNOWN addresses into "charger" addresses...

THEN...

You have no way of saving your very carefully planned (and now very labor intensive) route for this trip. You basically got to wire it all together at zero-dark-thirty again BEFORE you pull out of your garage. You COULD actually be using this precious time to be laying down the miles, but since no one at Porsche has apparently tested this stuff in real life, you sit in the car needlessly fighting with the Nav system.

Who really cares with an ICE, right? ...but with an EV, pre-planning for charging stops is a critical requirement for any road trip!

 

[Spd_Tkt]

@evanevery In the year since you shared your post, have you seen improvements in software and availability of EA chargers? I have only driven in Washington and Oregon, and while I have seen EA chargers that appear to be "down" - the green perimeter lights are not illuminated, all the EA chargers I have used in the last few months have worked using the "Plug & Charge" capability.

I ask because I will be venturing out to ID, UT, and CO for a Thanksgiving road trip. Thanks for any advice you and others can share.

Cheers!

 

[Spd_Tkt]

@evanevery In the year since you shared your post, have you seen improvements in software and availability of EA chargers? I have only driven in Washington and Oregon, and while I have seen EA chargers that appear to be "down" - the green perimeter lights are not illuminated, all the EA chargers I have used in the last few months have worked using the "Plug & Charge" capability.

I ask because I will be venturing out to ID, UT, and CO for a Thanksgiving road trip. Thanks for any advice you and others can share.

Cheers!

I see from the "Plug & Charge stopped working" thread that I should still be worried!